CHAPTER FOUR - Physics & Astronomy



CHAPTER 4

RESULTS

Introduction

In this chapter the results of the Binary Stars Project are presented to answer the following research questions: (a) How does participation on a scientific research team change science teachers’ views of the nature of science and scientific inquiry? (b) What other changes occur to science teachers from participating on a scientific research team?

In the first section, participants’ views of the NOS and SI aspects as described by Lederman et al. (2002) and Schwartz et al. (2001) are presented aspect by aspect. Examples of naïve and informed statements made by the participants are presented for each aspect. Subsequently, I describe changes, if any, in views of the entire group of participants on each aspect. Concept maps on the nature of science and scientific inquiry are also presented. In the second section, other themes that were discussed by the participants as a result of doing astronomical research on binary stars is presented. These themes typically came up as part of written responses to weekly questions and during interviews. Some of these themes include astronomical topics, mathematics, communications, and amateur astronomy. In the third section, the participants’ experiences during The Binary Star Project are presented. This is done for all three teams instead of individually because they worked in teams and thus I observed them as teams, not as individuals. Finally any potential changes in the participants’ pedagogy are discussed.

Changes in Views of the Nature of Science and Scientific Inquiry Aspects

In this section I will present how the participants’ views on each aspect of the nature of science and scientific inquiry changed while they were doing the Binary Star Project. I want to make it clear that I am not claiming that changes seen were caused only as a result of the Binary Star Project. Some of these participants were enrolled in other courses, and they may have had other experiences outside this project that could have contributed to the changes observed. Unfortunately, these things were out of my control, and I did not ask them about the content of these courses or experiences. What I can say is that the changes to be described did occur during the summer of 2002 when this project was done. Changes seen will be described aspect by aspect in this section.

The Tentative Nature of Science

Science is tentative and subject to change, based on new observations and reinterpretations of existing observations. This occurs whenever new technologies are developed that generate new data, such as the Hubble Space Telescope. It can also occur when totally new theories are developed, as occurred during the Copernican revolution in astronomy. Such changes in our scientific knowledge are related to the subjectivity and creativity of scientists. Tentativeness is also related to the culture from which the science is being generated. As culture changes so does the science it produces. Therefore, all of the other aspects described as part of the nature of science and scientific inquiry are the rationale for why science is tentative.

Naïve Views of Tentativeness

An example of a naïve view concerning tentativeness is shown in an interview with one of the participant’s (P) who said:

P: Okay. The time aspect, human life span, and astronomer’s data are extremely small, time wise, compared to the number of years the universe has been around.

JW: So, do you think that if there was more time, that ultimately these astronomers would come down to all astronomers agreeing on one of these possible solutions?

P: Yes. Because I think we would see more of a trend, just like with our research. We might be trying to figure out the paths of these stars but we might have only four observations of them.

JW: So, given enough time, would you say that science would ultimately find the truth?

P: Yes.

From this it can be seen that they think the reason astronomical knowledge is tentative is that astronomers do not live long enough to find the answers. The implication is that given enough time, astronomers would learn the truth about the universe. This idea that the distance to the stars and the age of the universe relative to humans is the cause for astronomers’ uncertainty was the most common naïve view among the participants.

Informed Views of Tentativeness

Informed views should state that scientists are never absolutely certain about anything. Two examples of such statements made by different participants are:

Astronomers are not 100% certain about the structure of stars. They attempt to judge based on information obtained by the sun, the closest star to earth.

…it should be asked as to whether or not any experiment can be totally free from bias as to its outcome. Scientists like all humans are plagued by biases both internally and externally. It should also be noted that experiments are the closest vehicle that the scientific community has in taking much of the biases away.

The first statement directly declares that astronomers are not certain about the structure of stars because stellar structure is inferred from solar observations and not based upon direct observations of the interiors of the stars. The second statement says that science is something that is done by humans and thus cannot be perfect.

Overall Changes in Views of Tentativeness

In general the participants made a positive shift from naïve to informed, as shown in Figure 4. At the beginning of the summer all seven participants made at least some naïve statements regarding the tentative nature of science. Of these, three were making only naïve statements, and four were making mixed statements. None of them expressed an informed view of tentativeness. At the end of the summer three participants were making mixed statements, and four were making only informed statements. No participant made any naïve statements about tentativeness at the end of the summer.

The Empirical Nature of Science

Science is partially based on observations of the natural world. The accuracy of such observations is related to the perceptions of scientists and the instrumentation they use to collect data. Scientists interpret data as evidence based on their theoretical frameworks, culture, and other biases. Science is not an objective search for the truth. Science should be viewed as a mixture of observational, personal, social, and cultural influences (Lederman et al., 2002).

Naïve Views of the Empirical Nature of Science

Some naïve views concerning the empirical nature of science are shown by these participant statements:

This is why astronomy is different from most other sciences. It is based on theory and mathematical formula, and thus is a rather abstract science.

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Figure 4. Participants’ views of tentative nature of science.

The Big Dipper is a circumpolar constellation.

Seeing a comet across the night sky while stargazing. (During the follow up interview it was established that they were actually describing a meteor, or shooting star, and not a comet.) Because it is an observation in the universe I saw during a scientific assignment.

These statements were considered naïve for different reasons. The first statement is naive because it says that astronomy is mainly calculations and mathematics. It says nothing about observations of astronomical objects. It does imply that someone collected data, but this process is not described and almost appears secondary to doing the mathematics. The last two statements claim that simply making a casual observation is scientific. The second statement also says that recognizing a well-known star pattern is science. The person making the meteor observation claims it was a scientific observation because it was done while doing a different observation for a science class assignment. Neither of these last two statements discusses systematic data collection for the purpose of answering questions important to society. Therefore, they describe interesting primary experiences without any reflective thought concerning these observations.

Informed Views of the Empirical Nature of Science

Typical informed views of the empirical nature of astronomy should include making observations of the night sky with or without instrumentation. Some typical informed statements included:

A scientific astronomical observation is an observation of the universe that is used as part of data collection during a scientific inquiry.

We determine things in the world through logical means, and we observe, observation is a key thing, whether it is astronomy, or geology, erosions, rockslides, whatever, we observe these things and put two and two together, and we infer an idea about an origin that is basically these concepts that we study.

Astronomers collect data about the universe in many ways. Both optical and radio telescopes are used to collect information. This may be done mechanically (computer recording sounds, taking pictures of stars, etc.) or the astronomers may manipulate the equipment. Celestial bodies are studied according to their light colors (spectral patterns) and composition (elements).

All three of these participants claim that doing science involves making systematic observations of the natural world with the intention to answer some important question. Science is more than casual observations of some phenomena. It should be pointed out that even though the third statement shows a misconception about sound waves, it

never- the-less demonstrates that the person understands the empirical nature of astronomy.

Overall Changes in Views of the Empirical Nature of Science

In general the participants made a positive shift from naïve to informed, as shown in Figure 5. At the beginning of the summer three of participants made only naïve statements, one made mixed statements, three made only informed statements concerning

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Figure 5. Participants’ views of the empirical nature of science.

the empirical nature of science. At the end of the summer no participants made only naïve statements, four made mixed statements, and three made only informed statements concerning the empirical nature of science.

The Subjective Nature of Science

Science is subjective and is influenced by currently accepted theories and laws. In addition there may also be some personal subjectivity of the scientists themselves. Subjectivity was not specifically taught as part of The Binary Star Project. However, some participants did make statements relative to subjectivity of scientists. None of their statements seemed to indicate a naïve view of subjectivity. Typical informed statements included:

The nature of science is one, which allows for the individuality of conclusions when dealing with data. Because much of scientific advancement is theory-laden and human intuition is distinctly different among humans, scientific conclusions are different in many cases.

Astronomers are thinking human beings. Even if they all look at the same observations and data, they may draw differing conclusions based on their background knowledge and experiences.

Overall Changes in Views of Subjectivity

There were no changes seen in the participants on the aspect of subjectivity. From Figure 6 it can be seen that at the beginning of the summer only three of the participants made any statements about subjectivity, which were all informed, and four participants did not mention subjectivity at all. At the end of the summer five participants made comments relative to subjectivity, which were also informed, and only two made no comments concerning subjectivity.

The Creative Nature of Science

Science is created using human imagination and logical reasoning. Human beings making observations of the natural world create science. It is an orderly activity based on logic and human imagination. It is from this imagination that laws and theories are developed. Scientific inferences are creatively generated based on actual observations.

However, creativity is not limited to generating models and theories. Scientists also creatively figure out new and unique ways to use instrumentation, to analyze data, and so forth. The current development of optical interferometers in astronomy, such as the Center for High Angular Resolution Astronomy (CHARA), is an example of creativity. How to construct such a novel instrument had to be creatively done. Such new instruments generate new types of data that have to be analyzed in entirely new ways than before. So the entire process of doing science is creative.

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Figure 6. Participants’ views of the subjective nature of science.

Naïve Views of Creativity

Creativity was also not an aspect that was explicitly taught as part of The Binary Star Project. However, two participants did make naïve statements related to creativity of scientists. One of them said:

I am not sure how astronomers know the structures. I am guessing that they take information from the light that was emitted and make mathematical models of their shape.

During an interview, one of the participant’s (P) said:

P: …I think there is a place, when you are being creative and trying to solve a problem, for drawing, and sketching out, in some type of way. I think that could very much be a part of problem solving, of figuring out various ways to a solution. Like, in a concept map. I think that does occur.

JW: So, you call that creativity?

P: Well, yes, I think that is a big part of science. I don’t think we would have all the inventions and discoveries we have if people had just been logical thinkers.

The first statement indicates that the only time scientists are creative is when they are interpreting data to make models. Creativity can occur during any part of scientific investigations. The interviewee seems to be saying that creativity is being artistic, which may be a useful talent, but it says little about the creative process in science. Neither statement says anything about creativity at other times during a scientific investigation.

Informed Views of Creativity

Other participants made statements that indicated that they had more informed views of creativity. These included:

Astronomical data analysis is not just about looking at observational data gathered through both research and astronomical practice (viewing through a telescope) but it also has to do with asking questions and pondering the information in light of other information collected. This last part is specifically human. Isn’t it funny that with all of the computers in the world that are working with specific information, it still takes humans to give the final say so on whether a conclusion or hypothesis is accepted or rejected.

During an interview, one of the participants was discussing a problem that his or her group encountered during data analysis. At first they thought they had done something wrong. After further reviewing their work, they became more confident and began speculating on other possibilities to explain an unexpected result. The interviewee said:

Because of the lack of confidence. The first thing was, where did we mess up with our numbers? So we went back and we checked all the math, and we talked about it. At first we said, “This just doesn’t look right,” but then we said, “ no, this all checks out.” Then we went and said, “What does this look like? Why does it not look like?” Sooo…

Both of these participants were talking about being creative during the data analysis process. In the second statement it is clear that after they were sure that they had done everything correctly they still had a mystery to solve. To do this they began asking questions and started to speculate creatively some possible answers. At this point they had an investigation within their binary star investigation.

Overall Changes in Views of Creativity

There appears to be little or no change in the participants’ views on creativity as shown in Figure 7. At the beginning of the summer only three out of the seven participants even made statements regarding creativity of scientists. Of these one had naïve views about creativity and two had informed views. At the end of the summer one held naïve views and three held informed views, and the other three made no comments relative to creativity.

The Social and Cultural Nature of Science

Science is a human activity that is influenced by and created from the culture in which it is practiced. Therefore, science is embedded within a cultural framework. Lederman et al. (2002) have written that this includes, but is not limited to, elements of the social fabric, power structures, politics, socioeconomic factors, philosophy, and religion. The Copernican revolution in astronomy is an example of how these and other factors influenced science. The heliocentric model of the universe conflicted with fifteen centuries of astronomical science. Telescopic observations by Galileo seemed to support the heliocentric model. However, the Roman Catholic Church was less than enthusiastic about accepting the new model. It was almost another century before scientists and Western civilization accepted the heliocentric model we know today. This shows that science is influenced by the culture from which it is created, and at the same time influences the culture that created it.

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Figure 7. Participants’ views of the creativity of scientists.

Naïve Views of Social and Cultural Nature of Science

When asked how astronomers choose what they will research the following statements were the most common:

What is currently being studied, the hot topic of the month.

What a prestigious astronomer is studying.

…well, it’s like if they want to make a name for themselves. I’m gonna find something that no body else has discovered before and get it named after me. I’m’ gonna find a star or something.

These statements tend to paint a picture that astronomers, and scientist in general, simply chase after fad topics or want to become famous.

Informed Views of Social and Cultural Nature of Science

More informed statements included:

In a perfect world, astronomers would choose what to study based on their passion for learning. They would spend all their time and effort on the celestial objects of their desire, so to speak. In the real world, time at telescopes costs money, as do plane tickets and other modes of transportation to various locales. Soooo, topics of study for astronomers is sometimes determined by institutional (research university, NASA, etc.) needs or by other types of funding (National Science Foundation grants, etc.)

Science is not truth but it is a worldview that contains several truths that differ according to the backgrounds, beliefs and natures of the many scientists who live on our vastly changing world.

The above statements deal with funding agencies, which are directly influenced by politics, religion, and government in general. The second statement expressed the idea that science is part of a worldview, which is clearly related to the overall fabric and structure of the society from which it was created. This last statement also combines the idea that science is tentative because of the worldview from which it is created.

Overall Changes in Views of Social and Cultural Nature of Science

The social and cultural nature of astronomy was explicitly taught as part of The Binary Star Project. The participants’ views seemed to make a positive shift from naïve to informed, as shown in Figure 8. At the beginning of the summer, three participants expressed only naïve statements, one made mixed statements, and three made only informed statements. At the end of the summer one participant was still making only naïve statements and six were making only informed statements.

The Observational and Inferential Nature of Science

Science is based on observations using the five human senses or extensions of these senses. Inferences are interpretations of these observations. Thus, they are related but separate things. Science is making systematic observations of phenomena that occur in nature. These observations are directly detectable to the five human senses, which may be enhanced through the use of instrumentation like microscopes and telescopes.

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Figure 8. Participants’ views of social and cultural nature of science.

Inferences, which are based on observations, are not accessible by the human senses. For example, observing two stars that appear to move around one another relative to the background of stars is an observation using vision. It is inferred from this observation that gravity, which cannot be detected by the human senses, maintains this motion. Other examples of inferences include the interior structures of the Sun and planets, which have never been directly observed.

Naïve Views of Observations and Inferences

Typical naïve statements made about observations and inferences include:

A star looks like a ball of gas. It does not have a definite outer border. Astronomers are fairly certain of the composition of the stars by looking at it through a spectroscope and seeing the absorption & emission lines. Telescopes also help to determine the shape & structure.

I’m not sure how they are getting different conclusions. My guess is that they must be making too many inferences of the data.

In the first statement the participant is saying that astronomers are fairly certain about the structure of stars because they have made detailed observations of the light coming from stars. This is naïve because astronomers observe the light from stars but they must infer stellar structure because it cannot be directly observed. The second example is naïve because the participant is claiming that astronomers disagree on the interpretations of data because they make too many inferences. This does not take into account all the other aspects of the nature of science, which also contribute to the tentative nature of science.

Informed Views of Observations and Inferences

Some typical informed statements included:

What we know about our sun, we attempt to assume to demonstrate about other stars. We must be careful not to assume too much.

Astronomy differs from other sciences since so much about stars, planets, etc. has to be inferred. It is very difficult studying objects so far away. Other science deals with things on our earth; therefore they are easier to study directly.

Both of these statements show that the participants understand that differences exist between direct observations and the inferences based on these observations. The first statement is informed because it describes using observations of a single object, the Sun, and applying them to all the other billions of stars, which have not been observed in as much detail as the Sun. The second statement is informed because this participant realizes that astronomers can only observe the light coming from the stars. Many of the other descriptions in astronomy, such as the structure of the interior of stars, have to be inferred from these observations.

Overall Changes in Views of Observations and Inferences

Even thought this aspect was explicitly taught, I did not observe any changes in views concerning the differences between observations and inferences. From Figure 9, it can be seen that I did not obtain enough postparticipation responses from the participants to detect if any changes occurred. It is possible that I simply did not follow up very well regarding this aspect.

The Nature of Methodology Used in Scientific Inquiry

When performing an investigation scientists do not follow the Scientific Method as presented in many science textbooks. Scientists typically make some observations and then develop a way to learn about what they have observed. They do whatever is necessary to find answers to their questions. They do not follow a set of steps known as the Scientific Method.

Naïve Views of Scientific Methods

In a follow-up interview, participant (P) clearly showed that they teach the scientific method as described in their science textbooks.

P: We did, at the beginning, the first 5-6 weeks. What is the scientific method? What is scientific inquiry? What is the nature of science?

JW: So, you had them memorize the scientific method?

P: mhh, no. I didn’t have them memorize it. They learn it through hands on. I can look back there, and have something sticking out back there, that I had written different hypothesis for three different scenarios. I had them take the three different experimental scenarios and figure out which one was the problem, which one was the hypothesis, and I had them do a chart. So, they kind of learned it that way, by taking little pieces of cut out, and pasting them on where they belonged.

JW: Okay.

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Figure 9. Participants’ views of differences between observations and inferences.

P: So, and then we went through each of the procedures to make sure that they knew what it was.

JW: So do the labs reflect this? The different steps of the scientific method?

P: Yeah, except that they are not creating the procedure.

It is clear that this person still has naïve views about the scientific method because they believe in its existence and teach the scientific method to their students.

Informed Views of Scientific Methods

An informed statement would acknowledge that there are many ways to conduct scientific investigations. Such statements made by the participants include:

While it might be argued that there are common sets of steps that characterize the works of many scientists, it certainly is just that, a characterization. Many valuable discoveries have resulted from the work of purpose that was less purposeful in initial stages, vulcanization of rubber, for example. While unintended things happen that raise “the question,” as it were to someone. Anything that causes the investigator, whether in a formal setting or informally, to wonder or stop to think, to reexamine a phenomenon where there is knowledge acquired can be a scientific investigation.

Overall Changes in Views of Scientific Methods

Figure 10 shows only a slight positive shift to the right in the participants’ views about the scientific method. At the beginning of the summer, two participants made only naïve statements, one made a mixed set of statements, and four made only informed

statements. At the end of the summer none of the participants made only naïve statements, four made mixed sets of statements, and three made only informed statements.

The Nature of Consistency in Science Inquiry

The term consistency in science inquiry was defined to mean consistency between evidence and conclusions that are based on the evidence (Schwartz et al., 2001). In the question about observing more blue stars than red stars, the conclusion was that there are more blue stars than red stars. This conclusion is consistent with the evidence. Notice consistency does not mean that the conclusion is correct, only that it is consistent.

Naïve Views of Consistency

Typical naïve views of consistency were about data verification. For example:

The investigation is okay, in a limited sense, but from there, I’d look for other astronomers who also had made observations of the like. Were their results similar? Do the observations hold to some level of consistency with other astronomers?

If they are using just a backyard telescope, they are not able to search everywhere in the universe, so it may not be smart to come to that conclusion unless verified by many other researchers.

Verify the investigation with other reliable resources.

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Figure 10. Participants’ views of the scientific method.

As can be seen from these three examples, the participants seemed to be saying that consistency is the verification of observational and experimental results.

Informed Views of Consistency

There were very few informed statements regarding consistency. Two of these included:

The conclusion that blue stars are more common than red stars was based on scientific investigation as long as the stars were counted systematically and accurately.

Yes, scientific knowledge does require experimentation in that observations must be recorded and simulated in order for the current hypothesis to be accepted. For example, plate tectonics is the current theory that explains many facets of geology. Experimentation has to be made in testing geologic ages in certain rocks along areas of rifting. The rifting can be simulated in a lab and observed.

Both of these statements describe that theories and conclusions need to depend upon the evidence, which is based on the data collected.

Overall Changes in Views of Consistency

As can be seen in Figure 11, it is not possible to make any claims about changes in the participants’ views of consistency. There were participants making only naïve

statements regarding consistency at the beginning and end of the summer. The opportunity to teach consistency explicitly came at the very end of the summer. At this time all of the participants were starting a new school year and were at GSU for a minimum amount of time. What time they were at GSU they were frantically putting

their poster presentations together and writing their report for the USNO. Therefore, I did not get to point out to them explicitly how their results were, or were not, consistent with other binary star concepts. So, any new knowledge concerning consistency had to be learned implicitly.

The Nature of Interpretations in Science Inquiry

There are multiple ways to interpret data, which are related to inference, subjectivity, and tentativeness. Interpretations are dependent upon scientists’

cultural background and prior knowledge. At the beginning and end of the summer six participants were making only informed statements. Therefore no were no changes in the participants’ views of interpretations could be observed. All of the participants were already informed relative to the aspect of interpretations. Some typical statements included:

Well, people have different background knowledge, different experiences they bring to looking at that observation or that data. Their interpretation of it could be totally different, based on what they know.

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Figure 11. Participants’ views of consistency in scientific inquiry.

Not all astronomers believe in the same theories about the universe. There is more than one correct scientific theory out there about the universe, and most seem to be backed up with reliable data. How one interprets that data, and the subsequent theory, may lead to different possible conclusions.

They will not necessarily come to the same conclusion, as each could have their own interpretation of the data available. Each had his/her own experiences that molded their learning and knowledge acquisition. Therefore, what they conclude from available information is colored or influenced by that which they have experienced.

The Nature of Data and Evidence in Science Inquiry

There is a distinction between data and evidence. Data are what scientists collect during an investigation. This could include measurements, observations, photographs, or anything else used to observe a phenomenon. Scientists use data as evidence to support particular ideas and theories. For instance, the Doppler shift of spectral lines in galaxies is part of the data used to support the Big Bang Theory in cosmology. The same data collected during scientific investigations can be used as evidence to support multiple models or theories.

Naïve and Mixed Views of Data and Evidence

Some typical naïve and mixed statements included:

Data is more quantifiable. Evidence is past, i.e. something happened, we did not see it happen but we know it happened (i.e. craters on moon).

Data is statistics or math!

Evidence is a point of view that supports a hypothesis based upon data!

Both of these statements indicate that data is basically numbers. While that may be generally true, it does not include qualitative data. The first statement mentions craters on the moon. This is a qualitative observation and is therefore data, not evidence, as claimed by the participant. The second statement seems to be somewhat confused because it indicates that evidence is a point of view that is used to support an idea based on data that has been collected. This person may actually have some intuitive concept of the difference between data and evidence and is simply having a difficult time communicating this. So the second statement may be naïve, but it could also be considered an example of a mixed statement, which is both naïve and informed.

Informed Views of Data and Evidence

Some examples of informed statements included:

Information, which might be in the form of E/M radiation that has been collected/noticed. Evidence would be the use of data that fits within and supports a particular explanation of what is being observed.

In astronomy data means what is collected for scientific investigation. It may be an image of a section of the sky, or plots of stars on a chart. Once data is analyzed, it can be used as evidence to back up an idea or theory.

Both of these statements claim that data are information collected during scientific investigations and include quantitative and qualitative information. This information is then used to support ideas or theories.

Overall Changes in Views about the Difference Between Data and Evidence

It can be seen in Figure 12 how the participants changed during the summer. In general the participants seemed well informed about the difference between data and evidence. There were no participants making only naïve statements at the beginning or at the end of the summer. However at the beginning of the summer, four of the participants were making mixed statements and three were making only informed statements. At the end of the summer, only two participants were making mixed statements and five were making only informed statements. This shows a moderate positive shift in their views towards more informed about the difference between data and evidence.

The Nature of Data Analysis in Science Inquiry

Data analysis refers to the different ways of presenting data in meaningful ways. This includes abilities like creating graphs or charts, looking for patterns so that the data can be used as evidence. In this project, I asked the participants specifically about astronomical data analysis instead of data analysis in general.

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Figure 12. Participants’ views on the differences between data and evidence.

Naïve Views of Data Analysis

Some examples of naïve statements about astronomical data analysis included:

Analyzing data furnished by astronomy.

Observations & Measurements & Drawing conclusions.

Not sure.

I would assume that it means putting different data points together to find a complete whole!

Pulling statistics from different sources!

Many different sources!

None of these statements mention anything about making graphs, charts, or using any other techniques to represent data in meaningful ways. The first statement defines analysis as analysis, which to me says he or she does not know. The second respondent simply admits that he or she does not know. The third statement I do not understand, but it appears he or she does not really know what data analysis is. The last statement does mention using statistical analysis, making it sound like that is what astronomers mostly do for data analysis. In fact statistical analysis is only a part of the data analysis that astronomers do.

Informed Views of Data Analysis

Examples of informed statements about astronomical data analysis included:

Crunching numbers, running statistical test to check for validity in the numbers and significance, and standard error. Compiling all the data into charts and tables so that it is easily read and interpreted.

There may be, after data is collected, the need to do calculations (as we did for position angle and separation), plot data to see if there is a trend (again as we did with the polar coordinate plot or the calibration star data plot). It may start with something as simple as comparing images taken at different times to see if there are any changes in objects of interest or background, or it may entail something as complicated as using computers to make calculations or extrapolations of any trends noted.

Both of these statements include making comparisons of astronomical images, calibrations, making graphs, doing calculations, and so forth for the purpose of interpreting the data.

Overall Changes in Views of Data Analysis

Figure 13 shows that there was a positive shift related to the participants’ understandings of astronomical data analysis. At the beginning of the summer, four participants made only naïve statements, two made mixed statements, and one made only informed statements. At the end of the summer, no participants were making only naïve statements, four were making mixed statements, and three were making only informed statements.

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Figure 13. Participants’ views about astronomical data analysis.

Overall Changes of Individual Participant’s Views of NOS and SI

The preparticipation and postparticipation views of each participant based on their written responses to the VNOS/VOSI-ASTR questionnaire and follow-up interviews are shown in Table 6. From Table 6 it can be seen how each participant’s views changed or

did not change from the beginning to the end of the summer. There are cases where a participant may not have made any statements relative to an aspect. In these circumstances it is not possible to see changes. It can be seen that the participants’ views changed in all possible combinations. In general, their views either stayed the same or changed in the direction of being more informed. However, some individuals’ views changed in the opposite direction from informed to naïve. Martha is a particular case where four of her views on aspects seem to change from more informed towards naïve. Based on her improved scores on the concept maps (Table 7), I am not sure that these

Table 6

Participants’ views relative to each aspect of VNOS or VOSI

|VNOS Aspects |Owen |Barbara |Allen |Frank |Gene |Karen |Martha |

|Tentativeness |M - I |M - M |N - I |M - M |N - I |N - I |M - M |

|Empirical |M - M |N - M |I - I |I - I |N- M |N - M |I - I |

|Subjectivity |* - * |I - * |I - * |* - * |I - I |I - I |I - I |

|Creativity |I - * |* - * |N - I |* - * |I - I |* - * |I - N |

|Social & Cultural |I - I |N - N |N - I |I - I |I - I |N - I |M - I |

|Embeddedness | | | | | | | |

|Observations & Inferences |* - * |N - I |N - * |M - * |I - * |N - * |I - M |

|VOSI Aspects | | | | | | | |

|Methods |M - I |N - M |I - M |I - I |M- M |I - I |I - M |

|Consistency |N - N |N - * |N - M |M - N |M - * |N - I |I - N |

|Interpretations |I - I |I - I |I - I |I - I |* - * |I - I |I - I |

|Data & Evidence |M -N |I - I |M -M |I - I |M - I |M - I |I - I |

|Data Analysis |M - I |M - M |N - M |I - I |N - I |N - M |N - M |

Note. In each cell, preparticipation categorization appears on the left and postparticipation categorization appears on the right. N = Naïve. M = Mixed.

I = Informed. * = no categorization.

changes reliably reflect Martha’s views on these aspects. It is possible that the discrepancy occurred because I did not collect enough data from Martha.

Concept Maps on the Nature of Science and Scientific Inquiry

The participants were asked to draw concept maps on the nature of science and scientific inquiry at the beginning of the summer and at the end of the summer. These maps were used as a third way to get a picture of how the participants’ views of NOS

and SI changed during The Binary Star Project. All concept maps were scored by counting the correct number of relationships, the number of levels, the number of

Table 7

Nature of Science Concept Map Scores

|Name |Preparticipation score |Postparticipation score |Difference |

|Owen |9 |33 |24 |

|Barbara |14 |N/A |N/A |

|Allen |0 |12 |12 |

|Frank |26 |41 |15 |

|Gene |16 |48 |32 |

|Karen |8 |N/A |N/A |

|Martha |29 |37 |8 |

branches, and the number of crosslinks (Hemler, 1997). Two samples of preparticipation concept maps are shown in Figure 14. It can be seen that one participant is drawing the scientific method. The other participant did seem to be indicating that science is empirical. Two samples of postparticipation concept maps from different participants are shown in Figure 15. The samples in Figures 14 and 15 are from four different participants and cannot be used to follow changes for any individual participant. In Figure 15, the top map is rather simple but it does list some of the nature of science aspects discussed during The Binary Star Project. The crosslinks indicate this participant’s views of these aspects as being interrelated. The bottom map in Figure 15 is more complex than the top map. It too shows some of the aspects discussed during The Binary Star Project. It can be seen that few or no nature of science aspects were included in the preparticipation maps. However, several aspects were included in the postparticipation maps. Table 7 shows the preparticipation and postparticipation scores on all the participants’

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Figure 14. Typical preparticipation concept maps on the nature of science and scientific inquiry.

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Figure 15. Typical postparticipation concept maps on the nature of science and scientific inquiry.

concept maps of NOS and SI. In the last column it can be seen that five out of the seven participants increased their map score. Unfortunately two participants did not return their postparticipation maps, so I could not see what changes if any occurred for them. From the results in Figures 14 and 15 and in Table 7, it can be seen that the participants gained some knowledge about the nature of science, which is consistent with what was found in the results of the VNOS/VOSI-ASTR instrument and follow-up interviews.

Additional Themes

During the coding process other themes were noticed. Some of these arose spontaneously, and for others I asked questions to promote a discussion of a particular topic. The data sources for these themes came from written responses to the VNOS/VOSI-ASTR instrument, interviews, and written responses to the weekly questions. In fact some of the weekly questions were intentionally asked to find out about some topic I wanted to explore. The themes identified were astronomical, mathematical, communications, calibrations, amateur astronomy as scaffolding, amateur astronomy as science, astronomical selection affects, and astronomical observations as experiments. I did not make any attempt to judge if these statements were naïve or informed. I am simply reporting what was said without passing judgment. As I investigated further, I began to realize that some of these themes could actually be included within some of the NOS and SI aspects (Lederman et al., 2001, 2002; Schwartz et al., 2001) previously described. When this occurred, I applied those aspects to my themes to determine if participants were making naïve, mixed, or informed statements in the previous section. However, I will describe them here because it is important to notice that my coding reinforces these aspects. In the subsections that follow, I describe theme by theme what the participants were saying about each theme.

Astronomical

Participants’ responses to the first question in the VNOS/VOSI-ASTR were the most common places where astronomical topics were described because this question asked how astronomy was different from other sciences. The purpose of this question was to elicit the idea that astronomers can only observe the stars and cannot do experiments on them. Most of the participants did describe time and distance problems in astronomy. They mainly said that astronomy was different because the stars are so far away, so they are seen as they were in the past and not as they are today. However, I got an unexpected response regarding tentativeness. Long after the participants’ last interview, I reread these statements and began to realize that they were saying that astronomy is less exact than other sciences because of these time and distance issues. Therefore, they thought astronomy was less exact than other sciences. After careful consideration I decided that these were naïve views about the tentativeness of astronomy. Therefore, these responses were recoded as statements relative to the tentative aspect previously described.

Mathematical

At the beginning of the summer, five of the participants made statements regarding mathematics. These statements spontaneously occurred when answering VNOS/VOSI-ASTR questions, during the follow-up interviews, and as answers to weekly questions. In the first set of weekly questions, I ask them what they thought astronomers do. Four out of the seven said that astronomers do math. Some typical early statements regarding mathematics included:

I think that astronomers spend a lot of time doing trigonometry to calculate parallax, and finding major axis of ellipses.

… how to do calculations that may be based on mathematical skills that we may not have.

Also astronomy is 90 percent math-based and other sciences such as biology, ecology & geology are not as much.

Astronomers used statistics to predict movement.

All of these statements indicate that the participants thought that astronomers do a lot of mathematics. The second one is clearly a little intimidated by the idea of doing the math necessary for this project.

At the end of the project five of the participants mentioned math. However, all five of them seemed to be less intimidated than the participants who’d made mathematical statements at the beginning of the project. Their comments indicated to me that the math simply became a natural part of the project. In describing how we did calibrations, one of them said:

We used several known stars from Tanguay to calibrate. The stars were figured according to their known primary star and secondary star separation. These stars were calculated according to their pixel to arc second ratio. Since the stars are standard and show very little change over time, the same ratio can be used to calculate our star SEI 548. The Tanguay stars were then put on a graph that showed the linear regression of the pixels to arc second ratio of some standard stars. The known stars were shown to be 0.63 arc seconds per pixel. In each photograph, we simply subtracted the secondary “x” from primary “x” and secondary “y” from the primary “y”. This gave us the Theta X and Theta Y. We then used the formula Separation squared equals Theta Y squared plus Theta X squared. We then calculated the square root of the separation squared. Finally, we used the formula y = 0.63x + .22. The separation in pixels represented the x in the last formula. This process gave us the separation in arc seconds and that is how we used the calibration data to find the separation of our primary and secondary star.

As part of the week seven’s questions, I ask what they enjoyed the most, and one of them said “I enjoyed both doing the math (as long as I am provided with a formula)…” However, when asked how I might improve this project one participant said “Spend more time on the basic mathematics that are needed.”

Communications

Throughout the summer, six out of the seven participants wrote about the need for astronomers to communicate with each other. Many of them mentioned the need for doing some preliminary reading about what other scientists had written on whatever topic was being researched. Some participants mentioned that astronomers go to meetings to learn what other astronomers are doing and to tell other astronomers what they are doing. One of the more important statements made was,

…unless that information is shared with others, compared to other observations, open to question by other astronomers, there is little intrinsic value or contribution to the body of knowledge of Astronomy.

This shows some informed insight into why scientists attend professional meetings and publish papers in journals.

Another part of communication was learned by one of the research teams during its poster presentation. This particular group had found a mystery about their binary star that they had not solved. One of the GSU astronomer’s immediately recognized a possible solution to the mystery. After the presentations he worked with this group to resolve the problem. Instead of a binary star, they had inadvertently observed an optical pair in which one of the stars was a well known proper motion star in the foreground. Therefore, this star should not even be in the WDS as a binary star. At this point this team learned that scientists discuss their results with other scientists to help resolve problems. They had to write an addendum (Appendix F) to their report being sent to the USNO and describe this discovery of an error in the WDS. This was obviously accomplished because their report is now cited in the WDS for pointing out this error. This particular research team learned the importance of communicating with the astronomical community.

Calibrations

The research teams learned the need for accurate instrument calibrations. In writing about what made their binary star observations scientific and believable, four of the participants wrote about using standard stars with known values of ρ and θ to calibrate the images scales. They also wrote about using star trails to establish the four cardinal directions of north, south, east, and west on their CCD images. When ask directly about the use of standard stars and calibrations, all seven participants were able to explain how this was done as part of their binary star research. One participant discussed how he or she they thought using standard stars for calibration was a way for astronomers to have control variables. At the end of the summer, all of the participants seemed to understand the concept of using known standard stars for astronomical instrument calibration.

Amateur Astronomy as Scaffolding

During the first week of the project all the participants went to HLCO to do a guided laboratory exercise on observing binary stars. There were two reasons to do this. First, I hoped this would provide them with a “wow, this is neat” type of experience. I had assumed that most of the participants had very limited, or no experience, using telescopes. Therefore, I wanted to have them use simple telescopes as scaffolding before they started using more complex telescopes.

Near the end of the summer I asked each teacher how making amateur observations helped him or her to make research observations. Their answers to this were:

It started to help me learn my way around the sky. Understanding directions, movement of stars across the night sky, and what I was trying to look for and see.

Making the amateur observations a couple of weeks ago helped me with the research observations because I would not have had any idea what to look for when we were looking for that first glimpse of a faint star. I would not have known to look in the direction of Vega and I also was very naïve as to the fact that we could only view certain star systems depending on the season.

It helped by actually getting to use a telescope and getting a feel for direction and what to look for. It was extremely helped in orienting myself with the sky and stars.

It was an attention grabber! It immediately got us interested in looking at objects. The experience of working with the smaller scope was similar to the experience of working with the larger scope, but it was less complicated. Therefore, it removed some of the anxiety or thoughts that it would be difficult to do/see.

Practice using the red "bull's eye" apparatus on the telescopes was good preparation for using the large research telescope.

From these statements it is obvious using simple backyard telescopes early in the project helped these teachers transition into using a larger, more sophisticated telescope later in the summer. In addition it can be seen that this amateur observing caused them to learn additional astronomy content, such as motions and directions of the celestial sphere, seasonal nature of observations, and even some star and constellation names.

Amateur Astronomy as Science

During the first set of follow-up interviews, some of the participants referred to the first night at HLCO as science. Upon further investigation, I found that two of them thought that simply making casual observations of constellations, or using a telescope to view the Moon, was doing science. In one of those interviews I asked one of the participants if they thought using a telescope in the backyard was a scientific observation:

JW: Okay. So, if you go out in your backyard, and you look at the sky, just for fun, is that scientific observation?

P: I see it as such.

JW: You do. Fine. Just wanna clarify. So, you also see going out and doing position measurements or something more sophisticated as also being scientific research.

P: Yes.

JW: Okay. Do you consider just looking at the moon scientific research? I mean, you look through an eyepiece, you see the moon , you go “oh, cool.” You call your family out and say “You have to see this.”

P: That’s the

JW: I’m not quite following.

P: That’s the part. Calling the family out, looking at different things. Maybe things that you don’t see on previous observations. I see that as scientific in that you are gaining more knowledge about what it is that you are observing. Even though it may be a very common.

JW: Oh, okay, even though there are no controls or variables, which you mentioned before…

P: It would be a very informal observation, but with the potential of furthering knowledge. I see that as scientific.

JW: Okay. Furthering whose knowledge?

P: It could be the individual; it could be mom and the kids in the kitchen, “Come on outside, come see what I saw.”

The other participant, who was also talking about making casual observations, made very similar statements related to observing the Big Dipper. Both of these participants were saying that it is science if they are personally gaining scientific knowledge, even if it is common knowledge within the astronomical community. At the end of the summer both of them still claimed that adding to your personal knowledge base was doing science.

Astronomical Selection Affects

When astronomers observe the night sky and count stars by color, it is common to find more blue stars than red stars. Even into the early Twentieth Century, astronomers thought that blue stars were more common than red stars. However, as new and improved instrumentation and observational techniques were developed, this view changed. It is now believed that red stars are more common than blue stars. Question eight of the VNOS/VOSI-ASTR questionnaire was about an astronomer’s making star counts and reaching the conclusion that blue stars are more common than red stars based on their results. This question was intended to learn about the participants’ view of the empirical nature of science and about consistency between observations and conclusions based on the data collected.

At the beginning of the summer, only two out of the seven participants thought that this was a scientific investigation. Both claimed that observing was part of the scientific process, and so it was scientific. The other five participants claimed that it was not science. Some typical statements these five participants said were:

It is not scientific and it is not valid. Too many other variables that have not been controlled for, size, the bigger it is the easier it is to see. Blue light travels better through space (it’s not filtered as much).

What if the person is colorblind? If they are using just a backyard telescope, they are not able to search everywhere in the universe, so it may not be smart to come to that conclusion unless verified by many other researchers… Verify the investigation with other reliable resources.

No. This astronomer did not use a different telescope with a different power or location (i.e. Southern hemisphere)…He/She should research to see what other astronomers have recorded. He/She should use telescopes in different locations.

What I thought these statements were addressing was the idea that blue stars may appear more common because they are bright and can be seen at much greater distances than fainter red stars. Therefore, blue stars are preferentially selected by the observer and thus only appear more common than red stars, a selection affect in the data. The data and the conclusions based on this data as described in the question are in fact consistent with each other. So why were the participants addressing this selection affect that astronomers are now pointing out as the reason blue stars are no longer considered to be more common that red stars?

The demographic information about each participant shed some light on a possible answer to this question. As it turned out six out of the seven participants had taken an astronomy class previously or were currently enrolled in another astronomy class. Therefore, they probably knew that astronomers consider red stars the most common stars in the Milky Way. So, I think they were pointing out that the star counting results described in question eight were inconsistent with the currently accepted answer, which they already knew. Therefore, I concluded that the types of statements quoted above were actually naïve views of consistency between data and conclusion based on the data. So these data were recoded as naïve statements about consistency and were included in the data for Figure 11.

Astronomical Observations as Experiments

Question 4 of the VNOS/VOSI-ASTR questionnaire asked if all scientific knowledge, including astronomy, required experiments. All of the participants claimed scientific knowledge did require experiments. At the follow-up interviews, I want to find out what they thought an experiment was and if astronomical observations were experiments. All of the participants claimed that experiments had variables that scientists manipulated. When asked if astronomers do experiments, most of the participants did in fact claim that astronomical observations were a type of experiment. At this point five of them redefined their description of experiments to include any methods used to gain scientific knowledge. Thus astronomical observations were included as experiments. A sixth participant (not one of the five above) discussed their binary star observations as a scientific inquiry. However, they said that observations were not an experiment because there were no variables to manipulate. This was the only participant who claimed that astronomers make observations but cannot perform traditional experiments. This does show that the participants did consider astronomical observations to be part of the empirical nature of science. It is not so clear how astronomical observations fit these participants’ concepts about experiments.

The Team Experiences

During the first week of the project the participants divided themselves into three research teams. This occurred naturally because of the participants’ daily schedules. They had to select teammates whose schedules allowed them to work together. This resulted in three research teams being formed. There were two teams that had two members, and one team with three members. What follows is the story of these three teams. They are presented in the order in which the teams obtained their first binary star images.

Barbara and Frank

Barbara and Frank formed one team. At the beginning of the project, Barbara was somewhat apprehensive about her ability to do astronomical research. In part this was due to her heavy course load for the summer and her limited ability to schedule evening observing time. Frank was very enthusiastic about doing a real astronomy research at an observatory. Whenever the observatory was open, Frank was almost always there. Even after his team had completed their observations, Frank continued to come to the observatory to help other teams, hoping he could take some additional images for his team.

Selection of a binary star to observe presented them with their first problem. They wanted a star that had not been observed in many years. They looked up a binary in the neglected list of the WDS, and then looked it up on a set of star charts posted at the USNO Web site. At this site USNO shows thumbnail star charts for all the coordinates listed in the WDS. There are twenty charts on each page. Barbara and Frank were disappointed when no star was found near the center of the thumbnail star chart. So, they picked again. This time they looked at the other nineteen charts on the page and picked a binary that was clearly visible and had an eye catching star pattern that they thought would be easy to identify in the real sky. Then they looked it up and found they had selected a binary star named STF 4, which had last been observed in the year 1925.

This group was the first team to get actual images of the binary they had selected. Both Barbara and Frank came to HLCO on the first scheduled observing night. Unfortunately, it was cloudy, and we all stood around in the yard telling jokes, talking, listening to the whippoorwills chanting, and hoping for a break in the clouds. Around 11:00 pm we gave up and went home. As luck would have it, the weather cleared near the July 4th holiday. To my amazement both Frank and Barbara came to HLCO. Barbara had her husband and two children with her. They had anticipated the clearing weather and had reserved a campsite at the state park where the HLCO is located. As night fell, more clouds arrived. We patiently waited and slowly the stars appeared through thinning clouds. It took about an hour for them to point the telescope at their star and identify it. Identifying the star turned out not to be as easy as they had first thought. However, their idea of using a bright eye catching star pattern did help them zero in on their target. This group completed their observing on this night and went home celebrating their success.

During the next week they measured their images. They had taken five images of STF 4 so they could make multiple measurements. From these individual measurements, they calculated average values of the angular separation and position angle. They found that ρ = 15.2 + 0.2 arc seconds, and θ = 47 + 2 degrees, which was very similar to previous values found for this star by other observers. So, they were not finding anything very exciting. However, I pointed out to them that they had made a contribution because they had been the first people to make an observation of this star since 1925.

The task of calibrating the camera image scale in arc seconds per pixel needed to be completed. Frank wanted to do more for the project, and Barbara had no problems with working at GSU during the day. So, they decided that since they had gotten images first, that they would work on the image scale calibrations. Over the next few days, they taught themselves how to use Microsoft Excel to do linear-least-squares to fit a line to four calibration stars. These results were almost identical to the results obtained the previous year during the pilot study. So, I had them combine their results with the six calibration stars from 2001, so that a total of 10 data points were used in the linear regression, giving an image scale of 0.62 arc seconds per pixel. Frank and Barbara then gave a short presentation to the other two groups on how this calibration was done. The other groups applied this image scale to their images.

At the end of the summer Barbara and Frank made a poster presentation of their work to the GSU astronomy faculty and graduate students. One of Barbara’s children had a birthday party about a week before these presentations, so she decided that these kids could help decorate their poster board. She had them cut up small pieces of sponge and sponge paint the display board. She also did all the cutting, pasting, and arrangement of the poster. Frank prepared a small Power Point Presentation about the image scale calibration work they had done. Barbara was unable to attend the poster session and Frank presented their work by himself. Because all of the other groups’ results depended upon their image scale calibrations, I asked Franked to be the first presenter at the seminar.

Gene, Karen, and Martha

This group was composed of three strong but different personalities. Gene wanted to learn all he could. Throughout the summer he tried to understand every detail of what his team was doing. Karen was the get-down-to-business type. She wanted to know what needed to be done next to keep the project moving toward completion. I do not mean to imply that she did not want to understand what was going on, but her goal was to get finished. Martha wanted to be involved in all aspects of the project, from observing to creating the poster presentation. This group had some interesting personality dynamics as they progressed through the project.

Gene, Karen, and Martha wanted to observe a binary star that had not been observed in a very long time. So, they selected one that had not been observed in over 90 years. They requested archival data on this star from USNO. When they received this data, they were disappointed to learn that the star had been observed as recently as 2001. We all learned that the WDS may get updated regularly, but the neglected list of binary stars may be neglected when updates occur. Obviously not every star listed is still neglected. The next day they selected the binary star SEI 548. Again, they e-mailed USNO for archival data and headed out the door. The group did not even make it to the building elevator before I had received their data back from USNO. They were surprised when I went chasing after them waving their requested data in my hands. This star was somewhat better than the first one, because the last reported observation was in 1934. So, they quickly agreed that this was the binary they would work on for the summer.

On the third clear night, July 7th, Gene was the only one of his team to make it out to HLCO. Of course, Frank was also there to help him. After initializing the telescope coordinates, Gene pointed the telescope to the coordinates of SEI 548. He excitedly looked into the finder telescope to see nothing. After a few minutes he began to see some faint stars. The team had deliberately selected this star because it was part of a small triangle pattern of stars, which they thought they could recognize. They had not realized that 10th and 11th magnitude stars are difficult to see with the human eye. In addition to being difficult to see, Gene quickly learned that there are a large number of faint stars in the sky. It only took a few minutes before Gene was finding faint triangle patterns all over the area where he was hunting for his program star. The frustration level was definitely going up! So, Frank gave it try. Then I gave it a try. Then Gene gave it a try. We were pointing the telescope and taking CCD images of every star in the area and comparing them to the expected binary orientation. We took many pictures of single stars, and then Bingo! We found it! By the end of the evening we had taken five new images of SEI 548.

During the next couple of weeks this team completed their data analysis. All three members measured all five images and had a total of fifteen independent measurements. Karen did all the statistical analysis of taking means and standard deviations for all fifteen measurements. They found that SEI 548 had values of ρ ’18.1 + 0.2 arc seconds and θ = 88.0 + 0.2 degrees. These values are slightly different from the 1934 values of ρ = 21.4 arc seconds and θ = 79.6 degrees. Therefore, they concluded that some motion might have occurred between the years of 1934 and 2002. However, no changes had been observed for this binary in any previous observations.

While walking by one of the astronomy area printers, I noticed one of the astronomy graduate students printing out images of binary stars. So I stopped to ask about them. He said that he had discovered these binary stars while doing a totally different research project. He was not even sure if they were true binary stars or if they were simply optical doubles, in the same line of sight. I could not let this opportunity go by, and I asked him to come tell my binary star research teams how he discovered these stars and how he was going to determine if they were real binary stars or not. He gladly agreed, and he came to the next meetings I had scheduled with each of the research teams. During his talk Martha discovered that she comprehended what he was talking about and that everything he did was exactly the same things they were doing. This was when Martha fully realized that our research was in fact real. I have a great picture of her that shows her interest in some very complex looking diagrams and math on the board that this astronomy student was using to describe his research. If it is what actual astronomers do, then it was real to her.

Karen and Gene built the poster presentation board. Throughout this process Gene was making sure that he understood where every number and calculation came from and why it was done. Karen got a little annoyed because she wanted to get the poster presentation completed and did not want to take time to answer all his questions. At this point, Karen needed data tables and written material for the poster paper. So Gene volunteered to write the report that the group sent to USNO because he thought this would help him understand what they had done during the summer. After he had written it, he brought it to me to proofread. He had included more details than was necessary. I told him that USNO did not need to learn about the results of their lab exercise to look at Mizar and some other double stars for fun. We sat at my computer and deleted three fourths of his writing and rewrote the rest. He was horrified watching all his work disappear. I assured him that he had done well, but USNO did not need all the details. He and Karen used a modified copy of this report to complete their poster presentation.

Neither Martha nor Karen had been present at HLCO on the night that Gene had observed for the team. Karen was okay with this because she felt like it was a team effort and that she had made significant contribution. However, Martha felt like she had missed the best part the project. Using a “big” telescope was one of the reasons she had joined an astronomy research project. At very nearly the end of the summer, Martha came to me and ask if I would consider holding one more night for observing. I agreed and sent out e-mail to notify everyone of one last change to observe. On the next clear night Martha and Frank came out to HLCO. Martha learned how to point the telescope very quickly. She surprised me at how fast she could point it at bright stars like Vega. She experienced some of the same difficulties that Gene had with identifying the pattern of faint stars in the finder telescope. However, Frank and I could remember what it looked like the night Gene had found them. So, Frank assisted her with locating the correct stars in the finder scope. Martha was very proud of herself when she took the first image and the right star appeared on the computer monitor. I have a nice picture of her seated at the computer pointing to the tiny binary star on the screen. This observation made the entire summer worth it for her. You could see it in her face and hear it in her voice.

When Martha arrived at GSU with a new set of images, Karen and Gene were less than thrilled. They were in the middle of completing a report and poster presentation. They came to me and said that this data came too late and they were not going to redo all their work. Karen was really upset that she had done all the descriptive statistics and now they were all going to be useless. She and Gene felt this was unfair. As the project director I had to decide what to do. I talked with Martha and she did not care if her images were included or not. She did understand how Gene and Karen felt. She only wanted to have the experience of taking her own pictures. Because the statistics had already provided small errors for the data, I decide that it was not necessary to redo everything to include these last minute observations. The three of them then worked together and made a nice presentation to the GSU astronomy faculty and graduate students.

Allen and Owen

It was the second week of July, and Allen and Owen had not gone to the observatory to take images of their binary star. I was becoming concerned and insisted that on the next clear night that all three of us go to HLCO no matter what else was happening. Of course, that was on the Tuesday night of Major League Baseball’s All Star Game, which some of us wanted to watch. But we did what needed to be done and went to HLCO. All of us arrived before dark and got the telescope and CCD camera ready to observe. While waiting for it to get dark, we went into the observatory’s bedroom where there was a television set. After watching an inning of baseball, we went back to the telescope and started to point it toward their star. That is when I notice how far south and east this star was. The telescope was so low it was looking at the inside wall of the observatory. So, we went and watched more baseball while we waited for the star to rise higher in the sky. After another couple of innings, we went back up to the telescope to find that it was no longer looking at the wall any more, it was looking through trees instead. We also noticed that clouds were slowly approaching from the northwest. It now appeared that by the time the star rose high enough to clear the trees, it was going to be cloudy.

At this point Owen got creative and suggested that they select a new star over in the part of the sky that was still clear. As it turned out they had brought with them the twenty thumbnail finding charts obtained from USNO. So they randomly selected STF 2185AD from this set of pictures. They had very little information on it other than its coordinates and its last observed values for ρ and θ. We quickly got the telescope pointed at this star and identified it within a few minutes. Six exposures were taken as the clouds closed in and covered the sky. I went home relieved that every team now had images of a binary star.

The next day Owen requested all the archival data on STF 2185 from USNO. He received the data on five individual stellar components for STF 2185. At this time they learned that binary stars could actually be composed of more then two stars. For STF 2185 the AB pair had been observed many times between the years of 1830 and 1991. The AC pair had seventeen observations between the years 1864 and 1991, which were showing rapid systematic changes in their relative positions. The AD pair had only a single observation made in the year 1912, and it had been coded by USNO as needing a confirming observation. This was good news because Allen and Owen were now in a position of possibly confirming the existence of the D component. From this USNO data they also learned of a fifth, E, component that was fainter than 11th magnitude, which had not been included on their original list for this binary star. So the random selection of a star in a clear part of the sky had become good choice because they could use their images to confirm the existence of the D component.

Over the next few days, Owen and Allen visually inspected their images to identify all five stellar companions in STF 2185. They clearly found stars A, B and C. They could not find stars D or E on their photographs. Now they had a real question based on their observations and experiences. Why were the stars D and E not on their images? Their first reaction was that they had done something wrong, but nobody could figure out what that might have been. They quickly determined that E was so far away from A that it was probably off the bottom edge of their image. By comparing the relative positions of the C component to A, and comparing D to A, they concluded that the C and D components should be very close to each other on their images. They could find C but not D, and they began to speculate about why D was not visible. Maybe it had gotten fainter during the 90 years that no one was looking at it and was now too faint to appear on their photographs? Maybe it was hiding behind C? Maybe it didn’t exist at all? I pointed out to them that now they had a mystery and were beginning to do their own scientific inquiry based on their questions. The apparently simple task of confirming D’s position was turning out to be more of a problem than they had first thought. The identification of the five stellar components to STF 2185 had become a scientific inquiry of its own.

Another data source was needed to try to figure out what was going on with the missing D and E components. I recommended that they use the Digitized Sky Survey (DSS) posted on a Web site at the Space Telescope Institute. This is a set of digital sky images that covers the entire sky, and so STF 2185 should appear in these images. They entered the coordinates into the DSS request form and 2185 appeared right in the center of the digital image. Within minutes they found the components A, B, C, and E as shown in Figure 16. They had been right about E. It was in fact was just off the bottom edge of their images. However, the mystery of the D star had only deepened, they still could not find it.

During the third week of July, Dr. Mason, who maintains the WDS at USNO, arrived at GSU to visit with several of his colleagues. I had him pay Allen and Owen a

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Figure 16. DSS image of STF 2185 identifying stellar components A, B, C, and E. North is at the top and East on the left of this 15x15 arc minute field of view.

visit to see if he could help solve their questions about 2185’s D component. After looking at their work, he was convinced that they had done nothing wrong and told them

the WDS had many mistakes and transcription errors. He used our computer network to contact the library at USNO to find out who made the 1912 observation. He was curious

to see if it was a reliable observer or not. Unfortunately USNO’s computer server was temporarily down and he could not find out the observer’s name. Allen and Owen were very impressed that this man would take an hour of his time to help them try to solve a problem about data their observations. They were also surprised that an international data archive, such as the WDS, had mistakes in it. This led me into a discussion with them about the human side of science. Observers are working in the dark, they get cold, and they make mistakes. Even what appears to be factual information may be tentative because science is something that humans do, not a rigid set of facts. After Dr. Mason left, Allen and Owen were still left scratching their heads over the D component of STF 2185.

It had already been noticed that the C component’s position was changing rapidly relative to A. Their images clearly showed the C component and so they decide to measure the values of ρ and θ for star C. The last reported observations of C were in 1991, so their 2002 data should show some additional motion over eleven years. They both measured all six images making a total of 12 independent measurements. They found that STF 2185AC had a ρ ’ 89.3 + 0.2 arc seconds and a θ = 247.1 + 0.2 degrees. After plotting all the historical data and their new value, another surprise occurred (Figure 17). We were expecting to see a plot that showed a curved potion of an elliptical orbit. Instead the C component seemed to be making a straight-line path across the sky at a rate of about 0.5 arc seconds per year. This immediately struck me as the typical straight-line path of a proper motion star. Proper motion stars are stars that are close to the Sun and their motion around the center of the Milky Way Galaxy causes them to show rapid motion across the sky relative to the background of stars. If C was a proper motion star this would imply that C was much closer to the Sun than the binary star system and simply passing between the Sun and STF 2185. I did not have any real

[pic]

Figure 17. The graph of the STF 2185AC made by Allen and Owen. North is at the top and East is on the left.

expertise or experience with proper motion stars, but a rate of 0.5 arc seconds per years seemed high to me. So I suggested that Allen and Owen go look up the fastest known

proper motion star, Barnard’s Star, and compare its proper motion to the one they were finding for STF 2185. If 0.5 arc seconds per year was similar to, or less than the proper motion of Barnard’s Star then they might be able to make some statements about the possibility that C was a passing foreground star. I told them this comparison would help provide some supporting evidence to any claims about star C being a proper motion star instead of a member of STF 2185. Until they had done this, I was unwilling for them to make such claims at their poster presentation in front of the GSU astronomy faculty.

The poster presentations were held on August 1st. Before the seminar Allen and Owen had still not looked up anything about Barnard’s Star. So I told them not to even mention that STF 2185C might be a proper motion star. I knew that Dr. Todd Henry, a GSU astronomer, was going to be attending this seminar. He is an expert in astrometry and proper motion stars near the Sun. Therefore, I was concerned that they (and I) would look bad if they brought this up and did not know anything about Barnard’s Star. During their presentation they did not mentioned their hypothesis concerning STF 2185C. They did hint that it might not be part of the binary star system at all, but were very careful not to talk about proper motion stars. The astronomers accepted Allen and Qwen presentation without asking very many questions.

It was after the poster presentations were over that all the fun began. When all three teams had presented their posters and the seminar was concluded, the astronomers walked around to each poster to see them more closely and to ask questions. Dr. Henry went to Allen and Owen to more closely look at their graph (Figure 17). He turned around to me and said, “John, this is a proper motion star.” To which I responded, “Thank you, that’s what I thought, but was not sure.” He took Allen and Owen to his office where he got out some proper motion star catalogs and other data. Within a few minutes he had helped them solve the mystery of STF 8125D. It was in fact the proper motion star, HIP 86013, also known as, LHS 3304. It had a proper motion of 0.607 arc seconds per year, which was similar to their estimate. He also found the distances to HIP 86013 and to the binary star system STF 2185, which are 48 parsecs and 74 parsecs respectively. Therefore, STF 2185C was not a member of this binary star system and should not be listed as a component in the WDS.

After this visit with Dr. Henry they came to turn in their written report. I told them that this new information was important for Dr. Mason to know about and that they should rewrite their report. On Monday they both had to return back to their school systems for the first day of teacher preparation week. So they really wanted Friday off to get a three-day weekend. However, Owen did come back on Friday morning and wrote an addendum (Appendix F) to their paper describing what they had learned from Dr. Henry about STF 2185C.

Acceptance by the United States Naval Observatory

At the end of The Binary Star Project all three teams’ written reports were mailed to Dr. Mason for possible inclusion in the WDS. He very happily accepted their results and entered the data into the WDS database. He gave Allen and Owen special recognition by placing an “*” by STF 2185C and referring specifically to their report as indicating that it was not a member of the binary star system and should no longer regarded as a binary star. In addition he had all three reports entered into the USNO library under the citation GSU2002 Wilson, J.W. et al. Georgia State University (student projects by … Unpublished manuscripts in USNO Library.) In a conversation with him, I learned that he had cited it this way so that future contributions could be similarly cited. Then he wanted to know about the binary star data collected during the pilot study, which I ran during the summer of 2001 (Wilson, 2002; Wilson & Lucy, 2002).

Possible Changes to the Participants’ Pedagogy

I had hoped that by participating in The Binary Star Project these teachers might change how they teach science. I was not able to follow all of these teachers into their classrooms to observe if they actually did scientific inquiry with their students. However, I did get to visit three of them in their classrooms and to make some observations of their rooms. I also asked most of them if they were doing science projects with their students as a result of their participation in The Binary Star Project.

Owen

I went to Owen’s classroom to do his last follow-up interview. It was a typical biology classroom, and there was no evidence oneway or the other concerning his use of science projects. During his interview he did say that in the spring he was taking some his students to work for one week in an environmental research lab near Savannah, GA. However, I do not know what his students actually did when they went to this lab. He had planned this trip before his work on The Binary Star Project and so this was not a direct result of his participation. He did say that he would feel more comfortable on this field trip because of his experience doing astronomical research.

Barbara

I went to Barbara’s middle school classroom to do her final follow-up interview. I could see several posters around the room that displayed the five steps of the “Scientific Method.” I ask her if she taught the scientific method to her students. She claimed that they spent three weeks on it at the beginning of the school year. She said that was partly because she was a first-year teacher and did not know what else to do. During the interview it became clear to me that Barbara was a new teacher who was following her school system’s curriculum for science.

Allen

I did not get to observe Allen’s classroom at all. During his final interview he told me that he was only teaching math this particular school year and was not teaching any science. He expressed interest in doing a scientific inquiry the next time he taught a science class. When the interview was over and the tape recorder turned off, he told me that he want to discuss something with me. He was curious if I had any ideas about how to do a scientific inquiry in a math class. He wanted his math students to see math as a tool to be used to solve real world problems and not simply as a subject that were being forced to take in school. At least Allen was thinking about how to apply his experiences in the Binary Star Project to the subjects he was teaching.

Frank

In the spring I got to visit with Frank’s physics class. On the day I visited he had his students working on a cosmic ray counting project with a physicist from a local university. These students were actually counting muons, using equipment provided by the university, as part of the physicist’s research project on cosmic rays. I am not claiming that this is a result of The Binary Star Project. In fact I had recommended Frank and some of the other participants to the physicist as possible teachers who might be interested in doing research with their students. Frank might have done this even if he had not been in The Binary Star Project. However, he did claim that working on binary stars did give him more confidence to do the cosmic ray research with his students.

Gene

I did not get the opportunity to observe Gene’s classroom. During his final interview he ask me about possibly getting access to some telescopes such as those described in Telescopes in Education (TIE) program being operated by Mt. Wilson Observatory. This program provides actual observing time for school students to take CCD images using a TIE telescope from the school classroom via an Internet link to the telescope. He was seriously considering having his 8th grade Earth Science students observe some neglected binary stars in the WDS using one of the TIE telescopes. I volunteered to help him if he wanted to do this, but I never heard back from him.

During the spring I met Gene while walking across the GSU campus, and I asked him if he ever used the TIE telescopes. He said no, but he did do some binary star activities in his class. He had his students look up a binary star in the WDS and then get an image of it from the DSS, just like he had done when investigating SEI 548. He also told me that he had volunteered to be the coach for his school’s Science Olympiad team in the event “Reach for the Stars.” He claimed that he would have never done either of these two things before last summer. It is very clear that Gene had been empowered to teach differently as a result of his experiences in The Binary Star Project.

Karen

Karen was a 6th grade teacher. In her final interview she told me that she felt that all of this was probably too difficult for her students. She also claimed that there was not time to do inquiry-based science because of the pressure to cover specific content that would be on high stakes tests that her students had to take in spring. I do not think that she changed anything about her teaching methodologies.

Martha

Martha’s final interview was done in her classroom. She was mainly teaching middle school language art, and she only had a small number of science classes. She discussed using hands-on activities and traditional verification labs with her science students. She also said that there simply was not enough time to do more than that. There were tests for which she had to prepare her students. However, she wanted to do more inquiry-based activities.

Summary

Results from the VNOS/VOSI-ASTR questionnaire and follow-up interviews showed mixed results. Positive changes were found for the aspects of tentativeness, empirical, social and cultural embeddedness, scientific methodology, the difference between data and evidence, and data analysis. No changes were found for the aspects of subjectivity, creativity, the differences between observations and inferences, consistency between evidence and conclusions, and interpretations. Overall this group of participants showed either no changes or positive changes in their views of the nature of science and scientific inquiry.

Additional themes that occurred during this project included astronomical, mathematical, communications, calibrations, amateur astronomy, selection affects, and astronomical observations as experiments. Two of these, astronomical and selection affects, turned out to be included within the aspects of tentativeness and consistency. From having coded these independently and later seeing that they were actually views of the aspects previously developed by Lederman et al. (2001) and Schwartz et al. (2001), I established some confirmation for the targeted aspects in their VNOS and VOSI instruments.

All three teams had different experiences during The Binary Star Project. Barbara and Frank got their data quickly. They basically confirmed that STF 4 showed no changes between the years 1925 and 2002. Because they were finished so early, they also did image scale calibrations for the entire group. Gene, Karen, and Martha showed that SEI 548 may have slight changes in ρ and θ between the years 1934 and 2002. However, there were only three data points total (including theirs) for this star and no conclusions could be made about the changes they observed. This group did have some interesting interactions when Martha made a last minute set of images that threatened to upset the entire summer’s work. This was resolved by simply not using the additional data. Allen and Owen made a serendipitous discovery of a proper motion star that had been misidentified as part of the binary star system STF 2185. Because of this they got to do the entire process of scientific inquiry. They made an observation that was inconsistent with previous recoded observations in the year 1912. This caused them to ask questions to do whatever they could to find out the answers to these questions. With the assistance of Dr. Henry, they found an error in the WDS, which they rectified.

It is not clear how much these teachers transferred any of their experiences doing a scientific investigation into their science classes. There was some changes, or at least benefits, that were observed for Owen, Frank, and Gene. There was the possibility of change for Allen, but he was teaching mathematics instead of science and did not use scientific inquiry in these classes. The other three probably made few or no changes in how they teach science.

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Levels = 1

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TOTAL = 9

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Levels = 4

Branches = 14

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TOTAL = 37

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